February 25, 2022 – AT&T announced its field testing new 5G small cell radios that can hide on top of street lamp posts. The new radios were born out of a partnership between AT&T, mobile technology manufacturer Ericsson, and urban solutions provider Ubicquia.
“It is virtually unseen from street level,” wrote Gordon Mansfield, AT&T’s VP of mobility access & architecture, in a company blog post. These new low- / mid-band 5G radios can be deployed within 15 minutes on street lamps. “No long wires and big, bulky boxes – a true aesthetic improvement.”
These new small cell radios are not a replacement for the much faster but more visible mmWave antennas that can cover only a couple of city blocks. But since the new radios are powered by street lamps and connected to nearby fiber, it could reduce the need to erect more standalone small cell towers in cities.